Chapter Thirteen: How About We Video Chat

Human malice doesn’t have a clear standard. As long as someone vaguely feels threatened, they instinctively reject it, and if they are capable, they may even deliberately suppress it. Su Yuan found this somewhat boring. Why was human society filled with so many utilitarian factors?

The dormitory didn’t have internet access, so Yang Xiaowei suggested that everyone go to an internet café together. Su Yuan raised her hand in agreement, and Ji Yehao had no objections either. As for Gao Jun, he was sent back to work on his software.

“You can’t do this to me!” Gao Jun shouted angrily.

Su Yuan suddenly seemed to have a pang of conscience and felt that they were being too harsh on him. “How about we bring you something tasty when we come back?”

Gao Jun muttered under his breath, still unwilling. Su Yuan became unhappy and kicked him in the calf.

“Hey, Su Yuan, why did you kick my leg?!”

“I’m happy to, and I want to! Going online is pointless for you anyway. You might as well honestly go back and write your software.” Su Someone lifted her chin and snorted.

“You’re simply unreasonable!” Gao Jun gnashed his teeth in anger.

Su Yuan floated a pair of dark, gleaming eyes over to him and stared straight at him. Gao Jun felt as if his punch had landed on cotton and immediately raised his hands in surrender. “Alright, alright, I won’t go online today, but remember to bring me back a family bucket.”

“What? A family bucket? Are you trying to eat me bankrupt?!” Su Yuan protested. She had spent quite a bit of money on medical examinations recently, and life was going to be tight for a while. This guy, on the other hand, asked for a family bucket right away—that was seventy or eighty yuan! If she had that kind of money, she’d rather save it, and someday rent a place outside, so she wouldn’t have to live in constant anxiety every day.

“One family bucket can bankrupt you? I don’t care. If you don’t bring me one, don’t expect me to give in!”

“Tch, look at your lack of ambition!” Su Yuan could tell that Gao Jun was completely dug in this time, with no room for compromise. The problem was, she really couldn’t bear to spend that money.

Watching the two of them at a stalemate—one refusing to back down without achieving his goal, the other like a defeated rooster who still wouldn’t admit defeat—the scene was incredibly amusing. Ji Yehao coughed lightly and cut in, “Su Yuan, just agree to him. I’ll pay for the family bucket.”

Her eyes instantly lit up. Su Yuan looked at Ji Yehao like a destitute bandit spotting a wealthy benefactor. Her gaze couldn’t have been more affectionate. As expected of a good brother—he really came through at critical moments.

“Yehao, you’re a real bro,” Su Yuan said, nudging him with her elbow after Gao Jun disappeared from view. Ji Yehao smiled silently. At that moment, a gentle breeze passed by, carrying a faint, refreshing fragrance mixed with the scent of shampoo. Ji Yehao’s expression wavered slightly. “Su Yuan, what body wash do you use? It’s been a whole day and you still smell so good.”

“Smell good?” She sniffed herself. “I don’t smell anything.”

“Maybe I smelled wrong.” Realizing he was talking about the scent on a man, Ji Yehao suddenly felt a sense of incongruity. At this time, the osmanthus trees on campus were in bloom, and waves of fragrance drifted through the air. What he had smelled earlier might have been the osmanthus scent.

“You two are walking so slowly back there—what are you discussing, bromance? Hurry up or there won’t be any computers left!” Yang Xiaowei suddenly turned around and shouted.

“Ah! Right.”

Su Yuan snapped out of it and quickly picked up her pace to catch up.

As she ran, she kept thinking about the scent issue. What Ji Yehao had said probably wasn’t a misunderstanding. Could it be that she really had a scent? When she said she didn’t smell anything earlier, she had just been brushing him off. She raised her arm and sniffed—it did seem like there was a faint, pleasant fragrance.

Could this be a girl’s natural body scent? She froze. Part of body scent comes from chemical substances metabolized by subcutaneous sweat glands and changes with diet. Another part is the “sexual scent” stored and released by a woman’s body—a pheromone released by female hormones. It doesn’t necessarily get detected by the sense of smell, but instead acts directly on the other person’s central nervous system.

Thinking about how she was currently taking estrogen, Su Yuan’s heart started pounding wildly. “These meds work way too fast, don’t they?”

“There are three connected seats over there. Let’s go there,” Yang Xiaowei said, pointing to a corner spot against the wall—safe and secluded.

“Sure.”

Su Yuan quickly chose the computer at the very edge, leaving the middle one for Ji Yehao. Then she skillfully entered her login credentials. The first thing she did was log into QQ. She had two accounts—one male and one female. The male account was the QQ she used in real life, while the female account was for online contacts.

“Beep beep beep…” After logging into QQ, the headphones over her ears rang.

Su Yuan saw that a net friend named “Red Leaf” had left her messages. This was someone she had met in a game.

“Are you there? The guild is organizing a dungeon run at six tonight, we’re short on people.”

“Why aren’t you online yet? Are you coming or not?”

“If you’re not coming, we’ll find someone else.”

“Damn it, Su Yao, you’re done for!” followed by a bloody knife emoji.

Seeing the messages, Su Yuan’s expression instantly became awkward. She had already decided to quit playing Zhu Xian 2, but she hadn’t had time to explain things to Red Leaf.

After thinking for a moment, she typed in the chat box: “Busy in real life, no time to play games anymore.”

“Cough cough!” The QQ notification sound rang.

Su Yuan saw a friend request. Without hesitation, she chose “ignore” for requests without any remark information.

After hesitating a bit, she decided to log into the game and send a message to her in-game friends. Red Leaf was a fairly close friend—someone she had played several online games with—so they had added each other on QQ. Ordinary in-game friends didn’t get that treatment.

As soon as she logged into the game, she received a bunch of private messages. Red Leaf even cursed at her directly: “Damn it, if you don’t come, I’m going to lose it!!”

“Hurry up, we don’t have enough people.”

“Auntie, if you don’t show up soon, I’m going to steal your husband!!”

“Crap, why is your husband missing too?!”

A bead of sweat appeared on Su Yuan’s forehead. She hurriedly apologized and once again explained that she was going to “reduce online activity.” She then sent messages to her other in-game friends as well.

Soon, Red Leaf replied on QQ: “Reduce activity my ass. Don’t you want your husband anymore?”

“Nope,” Su Yuan typed three words.

“Heartless!! Unfaithful!!!!” Red Leaf replied instantly in full caps, then sent another message: “If your Ye Emperor finds out you don’t want him anymore, he’ll definitely be heartbroken.”

“Ye Emperor” was the wealthy patron Su Yuan had latched onto online using the persona “Little Fox.” He spent money lavishly and was probably a rich kid. Normally, Su Yuan would act cute and call him “husband” over and over again. After all, it was just a game—who would know whether the person on the other side of the screen was a cute girl or a rough guy scratching his feet?

Little Fox had once asked Ye Emperor whether he minded. Who knew Ye Emperor would reply: “What I care about is the process of the game. In the game, you’re my wife. I don’t care whether you’re a cute girl or a foot-scratching guy in real life.”

That answer had startled Su Yuan. After that, she completely abandoned her last bit of embarrassment and clung to her “husband,” shamelessly asking for and getting quite a lot of equipment.

“A game is a game, reality is reality. A clean break. He understands it even better than I do—he won’t be heartbroken,” Su Yuan replied to Red Leaf.

After a long while, Red Leaf sent another message: “Did you two have a fight? (confused)”

“No.”

“Then why are you quitting, and why isn’t Ye Emperor online either?”

“Maybe he’s gotten busy with other things in real life too,” Su Yuan replied.

Red Leaf: “Hey, how about we video chat? Big sis still doesn’t know what you look like.”

“No.”

“Why!!!!”

“Because I’m a guy.”

“!!”

Red Leaf went silent for a few seconds. “That’s fine then. I’m a guy too!!!!”

“…”

“Stunned? Just kidding. Big sis here is a young and beautiful girl!!! Hey, you must be lying too, Su Yao—you’re a girl, right!!!”

“Mm.”

“Then let’s video chat!!”

“No, I’m too ugly.”

“!!!” Red Leaf exclaimed again. “Su Yao, you’re done for!!!”

It was obvious that Red Leaf was on the verge of exploding. Su Yuan chuckled softly and typed a few words with her delicate fingers: “I’m at an internet café right now. We can video chat later when I’m back at the dorm. But there’s no internet in the dorm yet, so it’ll have to wait a few days.”

“Oh, you’re at an internet café. Alright then, I’ll remember this,” Red Leaf replied, easily letting Su Yuan off the hook, as if to show off her magnanimity as an older sister.